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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500235">it's a hard knack life</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo'>unicyclehippo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [38]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:20:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: beau is brilliant but is flippant and hesitant to show it. sometimes the nein forget until they're reminded of this. aka beau is more than an athletic prodigy &amp; it shows</p><p>human feat: prodigy—you have a knack for learning new things</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [38]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it's a hard knack life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The day is blazing hot, blue sky burned nearly white, and the whole world smells like sulphur and iron and grass. It smells <em>hot</em>, like the world is one careless spark away from bursting into flame.</p><p>Beau is eight and follows behind the newest carpenter from the main house down to the woodshed, where she definitely isn’t supposed to be, and certainly not in the pretty dress she’s been dragged into. <em>Follows </em>is perhaps not the right word. Slink, sneak, creep. She flits from tree to tree, crawls on hands and knees behind the low brick wall that leads down to fields left and the stables and sheds to the right, presses her back against the blocky brick column that breaks this section of the wall from the next, a narrow gate between.</p><p>‘Afternoon, Miss Beauregard,’ Odwin calls to her as she contemplates how to sneak to the next portion of the wall. ‘You feel like standing upright? Or d’you prefer to wander with a new perspective?’</p><p>Beau huffs. Stands from her place and brushes red dust off her hands onto her dress. She frowns over the wall at Odwin. ‘How did you know I was there? I thought I hid really well.’</p><p>‘Aye, you did. Didn’t see you once.’</p><p>‘But… Then how…’</p><p>‘My deaf mum would’ve heard you coming, though.’</p><p>‘Oh.’ Beau crinkles her nose. ‘Alright. I’ll work on that. What are you doing today?’</p><p>‘Taking you back up to the house, I imagine.’</p><p>‘Don’t bother, I’ll just leave again.’</p><p>‘I have t’take you back, Miss Beauregard.’</p><p>‘No you don’t. I’ll tell them I made you entertain me. If they even ask, which they won’t.’ Not caring to comment on, or not seeing Odwin’s surprise, she continues, ‘Are you doing anything fun?’</p><p>‘Fun? Aye, I suppose so. I’m using the oak wood we got in the last shipment to put together more casks. To put your father’s wine in, see.’</p><p>‘Casks? I thought the wine was bottled.’</p><p>‘It is. Eventually. First though, well, after the brewing and fermenting, however that’s all figured – not my business – the wine sits nice and tight in the casks for, oh, at least a year. Down in the cellars, nice and cool and dark. Then we bottle ‘em and send ‘em out.’</p><p>‘Huh. And you make the barrels?’</p><p>‘Aye, some of them.’</p><p>‘Can I help?’</p><p>Odwin sucks thoughtfully on his teeth, eyeing the girl for a moment. Her dress—pretty as it once was—is already ruined from crawling in the dirt, a tear or two where she’s snagged it in the fence. It isn’t his place to say it but the girl isn’t suited to the indoors. It certainly isn’t his place to say it, but the girl isn’t suited to the parents she has.</p><p>He should say no.</p><p>‘You’ll be careful,’ he commands, fuzzy brows settling sternly over dark eyes. ‘My tools aren’t play things, you realise.’ She nods quickly. ‘And you’ll stay put and watch. Just watch. I’m not having you lose a finger because of me.’</p><p>‘Is that likely?’ she asks, intrigued.</p><p>Such a strange child, he thinks, not for the first time.</p><p>‘Well, no, not with what I’m doing today,’ he admits.</p><p>She clambers out from behind the wall and steps up right beside him, eight years old and already nearly taller than him. She’s grown like a weed—tall and haphazard, all knees and elbows, and all of a sudden. He could’ve sworn she had been a half foot shorter only last week.</p><p>‘It’ll be fine then,’ she tells him, and smiles wide enough to show off the gap in her teeth, off to the right where she’d lost the last of her baby teeth.</p><p>Odwin sighs. Hopes this won’t lose him his position. So long as no one sees, it should be fine, right? He tilts his head and begins to walk. Beau falls into step beside him.</p><p>The woodshed is large, made for the human who had held the position before him. Half-finished barrels, lids, and piles of the untreated wood have been placed around the outskirts of the room. To one side is a table and shelves with his tools and aprons; he ties his around his waist and points to a low stool.</p><p>‘You can sit there. Don’t—‘ He pulls a bullhead hammer from her hands. ‘Don’t touch anything.’</p><p>Beau sighs. Sits.</p><p>He endeavours to ignore her, working slowly at the task at hand, but it proves rather difficult. The girl has a pair of eyes on her like nothing else, crystal-clear blue and intent on everything around her no matter how insignificant. For the first few minutes, she had scoured the inside of the shed, noting everything and its place, and then her attention had settled on him and never shifted. Just when he began to question whether she were not some ancient soul, some spirit, she kicked her legs out like any other eight year old, swinging them and drumming her heels against the struts of her stool.</p><p>‘How come you’re not bending the planks?’</p><p>‘Staves.’</p><p>‘What?’</p><p>‘They’re called staves,’ Odwin tells her. Pauses a moment to wipe his brow. Glancing over at his bare furnace, he can see it’s almost ready for him to begin softening one of the more complete barrels. ‘If I set ‘em in a second hoop, they’d crack. Or splinter, and we don’t want that, no miss.’</p><p>Beau just hums. Adjusts her position—seated now upon a small barrel instead of the top-low foot stool—and settles still once more.</p><p>It goes on for some time, her asking the occasional question and him answering as best he can—sometimes with little more than a simple, <em>This is how I was taught to do it</em>, and she seems satisfied with that.</p><p>Finally, when he rolls his shoulders out from their hunch, aching from hammering the staves into alignment, he casts a look over at the girl. Pretty layered dress all a mess, a healing scratch on her cheek from an old adventure, scuffed boots and loose laces peeking out from beneath the hem of her skirts, still on her seat but leaned forward as far as she can to observe, elbows braced sharp against her knees. He reverses his hold on the hammer, holds it out to her.</p><p>‘Care to give it a go?’</p><p>Blue eyes light up, lightning in a bottle. She doesn’t take a moment to leap up, doesn’t question it for a second.</p><p>Before too long, with surprisingly few corrections, Beau has helped him to put together the first half of a functional barrel. They set it over the low fire, allowing it to soak and soften and eventually to toast, and he draws her back, offers her a cup of water. The jug is warm, almost hot from having sat on his work table all afternoon, and he thinks to apologise for it but the girl doesn’t seem to mind.</p><p>Strange, curious girl.</p><p>‘You did very well today,’ he tells her. ‘You’ve a knack.’</p><p>‘What’s a knack?’ she asks, eyes narrowed and lips all a scowl like she expects it to be bad.</p><p>‘Natural skill. My wife calls it a quickness. Somethin’ you pick up real fast. Maybe,’ he suggests, corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile, ‘you were a cooper in a past life.’</p><p>Beau smiles. It’s a mightily awkward expression on her face. ‘I like making stuff,’ she tells him, and Odwin watches her relax into the smile, freeing it into something big, unrestrained, brilliant, when he simply nods.</p><hr/><p>‘Learning a language is something that will require your full attention, Miss Lionett. Tardiness will not be permitted in my classroom, and a reluctance to practice will not earn you a reprieve—only more work. Am I understood?’</p><p>Her teacher is a strict woman and reminds Beau of a spider. Short sleek black hair clings tight to her scalp, and her dowdy grey schoolmarm attire is made of some material that seems fuzzy and sharp all at once. A pair of glass lenses sit at the end of a barely there nose; she looks down at Beau through them with a narrowed stare.</p><p>‘Am I understood, Miss Lionett?’</p><p>‘Huh? Oh, yeah.’</p><p>‘You will speak in proper sentences in my classroom,’ the spider tells her, before launching into her first lesson.</p><p>Beauregard is ten and school-bound. It had taken a full decade, apparently, for her dad to reluctantly agree that yup, she’s the one kid he’s got, and that he should make the most of it by actually letting her learn things he would’ve taught the son of his dreams. Book-keeping, mathematics, finances, whatever. All Beau takes from it is that the wood shed, the lake, the stables are now all well outside of her reach , locked as she is under the spider’s attention, and so she has to resort actually learning things to keep herself occupied.</p><p>The days pass in piles of paper and scratched tally marks on the lid of her desk.</p><p>She holds up a hand, ink-splattered as usual. She can’t seem to get the grip right with her pen, an ache building in the fleshy bit of her palm after only a short while.</p><p>‘Miss Lionett,’ the spider says after a moment, making her wait. ‘You have a question?’</p><p>‘I’m done. Can I leave?’</p><p>‘Done?’ The spider coughs a laugh. ‘You had twenty problems, Miss Lio—‘</p><p>‘I’ve done ‘em. Can I <em>go</em> now? Please?’ she tacks on, remembering that sometimes helps.</p><p>The spider’s brows tug high on her forehead. She waves a hand. ‘Bring them here.’</p><p>Beau pushes back. Chair legs scrape on the stone floor; the spider winces, an admonishment on her lips that Beau ignores in favour of the hopeful flutter in her belly that she’ll actually get to go outside today. Maybe even make it to the lake before the sun sets! Catch that toad she saw in the reeds last time. She hands the papers over, watches the spider’s mouth pinch in distaste, examining the ink-splotched pages. Little by little, the distaste fades. The spider’s brows crawl even higher.</p><p>Beau fidgets with the tight collar of this stupid dress she’s in. Light gleams across the murky little pool outside when Beau flicks her eyes to the window and she rocks on her feet, eager to be done and gone.</p><p>‘These are well done, Miss Lionett,’ she hears the spider say.</p><p>Darts a look up into magnified eyes, a yellow green the same colour of the lake reeds. ‘So I can go?’</p><p>‘Do you enjoy learning halfling?’</p><p>Beau barely contains rolling her eyes. She doesn’t contain her sigh. ‘It’s fine.’ She bites her tongue so she doesn’t ask again. She <em>never</em> gets things when she asks for them too many times; it’s rude, or whatever.</p><p>‘You have grasped the basics of it very quickly.’</p><p>She shrugs. ‘It’s easy. There’s only four more letters than in Common, and they always go with the same other letters. And the grammar is basically the same, except for questions.’</p><p>‘Ah—yes. That’s very true.’ The spider taps Beau’s pages of work into something more regular and sets them aside. Then, folding her hands on the desk in front of her, she smiles. ‘You may go play. But I will see you here again promptly, Miss Lionett,’</p><p>‘After lunch tomorrow, I know,’ Beau agrees, already breathless with excitement Ignoring the spider’s reprimand, she tears from the room down the corridor, to her bedroom, already struggling out of her dress and into better clothes, things no one minds if she gets them muddied or torn.</p><hr/><p>The monastery is grim and too much like the prison she was just bought out of for Beau’s liking. The only thing it has going for it is the whole learning how to punch people thing, and <em>that</em>… That Beau is fine with throwing her whole self into.</p><p>She stands rigid as a statue on the borders of the training room, which echoes with shouts of exertion and pain from the other monks. Trainees, all with new crisp vestments like the ones she’s wearing, all with their heads shaved too. Beau’s eyes are the only part of her that aren’t still, swivelling nearly out of her head as she sees some of these monks aren’t human or elven like the ones that had come for her; she sees halflings, half orcs, tieflings even among the intake.</p><p>‘Here.’ A staff is shoved into her hands. Smooth wood, about six feet. There’s a sudden stabbing pain as she grips it—the wood is white and all too familiar: oak. Her trainer doesn’t notice or doesn’t care and she sweeps her own staff down to crack painfully against Beau’s ankle, making her jump to the left.</p><p>‘Hey, watch it,’</p><p>‘You watch it, greenstick,’ the trainer retorts, face wide and stoic as a fucking brick. ‘Guard.’</p><p>She doesn’t tell Beau <em>how</em> to do that, but Beau has never needed anyone to tell her how to do anything.</p><p>For that first day, Beau earns bruises and smarting fingers. The day after that, she earns perhaps one less. On the third day, she realises that she can hit them back. A moment after she thinks it finds her trainer reeling back, catching Beau’s staff in one hand. She rubs at her sore jaw with the other.</p><p>Her trainer grins. Tosses Beau her staff back. ‘Usually takes greensticks longer ‘n that. Good work. Guard.’</p><hr/><p>‘What are you working on?’</p><p>‘Ah.’ Caleb slips a hand over the spines of the books he clutches to his chest. Beau doesn’t read too much into it, especially not when he immediately then offers them to her to look at. It’s a protective thing. she gets it.</p><p>‘<em>Algorithum’s of Natural Entropy and Evolution, Transmutation Theorem’s, Grades Three and Four, the Power of Herbalism in Ritual</em>—this is for Nott’s thing?’</p><p>‘Ah,’ Caleb says again. She obviously had interrupted a train of thought, bursting in on his wandering through the stacks like this. ‘Y-yes, yes in a way. And research, always.’</p><p>‘Cool.’</p><p>He takes back his books. Blinks owlishly at her.</p><p>Fuck. She misses owl Frumpkin.</p><p>‘Need any help?’</p><p>‘Certainly,’ he agrees, more readily now that he has the precious books back where they belong—in his hands, that is, not in their home on the shelves—and he waves to the place at his side for her to join him.</p><p>‘Wanna tell me what you’re thinking about? Maybe I just happen to know some shit about it. At least I can keep an eye out later.’</p><p>‘Hmm? Oh. Well, there is—there is a spell, I believe, that Halas has… ah… redesigned? It is an advanced form of polymorph—‘</p><p>‘Polymorph two.’</p><p>Caleb chuckles. ‘True polymorph, it is called. In some circles. I do not - I am not yet capable of casting it, but I can recognise it’s…equation. In what I have seen.’</p><p>‘Mhm.’</p><p>‘I believe that if I am able to - to blend it in some way with another spell, perhaps an illusion or…’ Caleb trails off, drags a finger over his chin thoughtfully. The <em>scratch, scratch, scratch</em> of his nail over stubble is the only accompaniment to their journey, other than their quiet steps. The library is not busy so late in the evening. Not tonight.</p><p>‘What about a clerics spell?’ Beau suggests. ‘It’d be crossed, ah, spell work—I dunno what you call that—but if you found a way to mix a revivify maybe? Or resurrection?’</p><p>She stops when she realises Caleb has stopped. His eyes—blue, like her own, but so often cool, glacial almost—are nearly white with the fire sparked in them.</p><p>‘Beauregard,’</p><p>‘Is that stupid?’</p><p>‘It’s brilliant! I don’t know if it would work – I don’t know if it <em>could </em>work, it would be mixing magics in a way I have never attempted, but if - the ritual could be prayer, certainly rituals are not foreign to clerics, for- for scrying and for communing and the like no so different at all, and I know there are prolonged rituals that are conduits for the divine much like raising the dead, which would require experimentation, perhaps some of the anchors of those rituals would – some <em>minor</em> adjustments, a kind of magical translation, almost,’ he mutters, accent thick as he grows more and more excited about <em>the potential </em>as he says several times. He shifts the stack of books into the crook of one arm and wraps the other around Beau’s neck, pulling her in to plant a whiskery kiss to her forehead. ‘Brilliant!’</p><hr/><p>‘<em>Dorok</em>!’ The undercommon is unfamiliar but the word is recognisable—halt!</p><p>The Nein freeze, ice dripping down their spines as they consider being caught here in the shadow glade, far too close to the beacons for any deception to get them out of. Turning, they take in the sight of the guards in their dark, jagged armour. The obvious mistrust on their faces. Caleb’s Seeming holds over the Nein’s forms, keeping them in their drow appearances, but it hadn’t hit until precisely this moment the drawback of not understanding the fucking language.</p><p><em>‘Akarish iv’viosk na-doth rakki ishnau,’ </em>Beaucalls back to them. Her form is bulkier, typical of a drow warrior, and with proud angular features. Though the Nein cannot understand the words she uses, her tone drips with importance.</p><p>‘What the fuck is she doing?’</p><p>‘Shh, shut up,’ Jester hisses. ‘Just nod when she nods.’</p><p>Beau nods. The Nein nod.</p><p>The guards narrowed eyes gentle very slightly from suspicious to curious. Speaking quickly to Beau, their tone and forms shift into something a little less strident, more conversational. She responds in kind and after a long, tense moment, the guards lift their spears and, with a nod, step away.</p><p>‘Hey!’ Drow Fjord whispers when they’re gone. ‘What was <em>that</em>? That was a-<em>mazing</em>.’</p><p>‘Very impressive,’ Caleb agrees. ‘But let us keep moving.’</p><p>‘Definitely. They won’t be gone forever,’ Beau agrees. ‘Thanks for the seeming, Caleb, they can’t see that I’m fucking dripping with sweat. Dude—‘ Beau slaps a hand against Fjord’s chest, her eyes wide with only slightly exaggerated fear, ‘they would’ve killed us. Like, <em>straight up</em>. We are <em>not</em> supposed to be here.’</p><p>‘I know! That’s what we thought would happen!’</p><p>‘It would have! But you know undercommon now?’ Jester asks.</p><p>‘Yeah, I picked up a couple books and talked to some people while we were in Rex - uh - the capital,’ she says carefully, in case the name of the city might set off an alarm.</p><p>‘You learned undercommon?’ Yasha interjects softly. ‘Just like that?’ she clicks her fingers.</p><p>‘Kinda? I’m a bit rusty,’</p><p>‘You’re obviously fine if you tricked those guards,’</p><p>‘I think I used the past tense for gardening—oh yeah, I told them we are gardeners so Cad, you’d better tell me all you know about, I dunno, tubers.’</p><p>‘I’d love to!’</p><p>‘Sweet. Let’s move, people!’</p>
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